A Little Overwhelmed

[lilmolly]

I haven't started my first saltwater tank yet. I've been doing freshwater heavily for 6 years now. I started with livebearers, than goldfish, than catfish, than gobies, than cichlids.

I feel as if I have a great footing in freshwater. I feel very comfortable with my understanding of their needs and care. I thought this would better prepare me for keeping saltwater when it came time. I have been reading TFH, including their saltwater for over 2 years now. I also have some books with saltwater info them.

Than, out of the blue, a former saltwater hobbyist gave me his old tank, stand, and equipment. I was soo excited and I still am. I immediately dug out my old issues of TFH and re-read all the saltwater columns. Than I went and re-read my books. Than I out online and joined a bunch of saltwater forums and started researching about corals, fish, inverts, equipment, live rock, etc...After all of that I've come to realize how little about saltwater I really knew. I thought reading TFH for 2 years would at least give me an advantage but after doing more online research I realized those 2 years were just the tip of the ice burg. I feel like my knowledge of freshwater is not helping much at all for saltwater. This has come to make me feel some what overwhelmed this the experience of starting my first saltwater tank. I'm so worried that I'll do something wrong and end up with a tank of dead fish. I'm tempted to just keep one small damsel in my 55gal and nothing else.

Have any of you felt this way when you were new to the hobby?

 

[Betta5]

yeah we all feel the same when we start out. I am stressing and im not even close to setting up lol


What equipment did you get???

 

[JaminRat]

Hi and welcome to the salty side

I can fully understand where your coming from and being new to the salty side myself I can fully understand where your coming from. The best advice I can give is to take your time and don't try to learn everything at once. Have a good read of the journal threads and stickies so you get a feel for how a system works and then break your research into manageable chunks. You don't need to become an expert in every area right away and if your like me some things wont click until you see it in front of you.

From my own experience I found a lot of things understandable but despite some excellent advice from Ski could not fully understand the difference between soft, lps and sps corals but after visiting by local reef specialist I now understand.

The key I think is to take your time and don't be embarrassed to ask anything your unsure of no matter how stupid it sounds.

 

[SkiFletch]

I can totally see where you're coming from. It was about a year ago when I decided to keep saltwater fish and I too was really daunted by the task at the time. Didnt quite know what to do or where I wanted to go. a lot of reading and experience later and I 'll still admit I have many shortcomings, but my knowledge has increased a lot. You too can tain an understanding to allow you comfort with your tank. Just be patient and ask LOTS of questions

 

[Ranger]

Oh boy... I feel ya. As they say... to the salty side! It's exciting! Good luck in your search for knowledge, you came to the right place!

 

[boshank23]

i was put off doing marine for for ages by ppl saying, its MEGA expensive, they are very hard to look after, you need so much time to look after it ETC. ok they were right about it being a money pit but if you work smart on your tank there is no need to work hard on it.

i just took the plunge after a month or so of reading, 9 months later i am happy to say the only sea creature i have lost is a hermit crab.

the only advice i can give is don't make impulsive purchases, reserch the live stock you wan't, ask ppl on here if you think there might be compatibility problems.

also stay away from damsels, they have real character but they is nasty

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yeah completely and utterly, like you've I've had tropicals for about 5 years, got loads of tanks, though i really knew my stuff, i've been so hopelessly overwhelmed by it all when we started out with marine's!!

but you've definately come to the right place, there's some fantastically knowledgable and helpful people on this forum so fire away with your questions and you'll soon start to get a hold on what's going on.